SF Bay Area Holistic Calendar

HempCon: Featured Event of the Week

I got request from my blog
readers to present featured events for the week, as there are so many things
are going on, and there is limited time available to take part in all of them. While
the blog proposes the listing for all California’s events, as resident of the
San Francisco Bay Area, I will naturally give preference to the festivals and
workshop, happening in proximity.

Featured Event of the Week

HempCon Cup

January 23-25, 2015 (Friday –
Sunday)

San Jose Convention Center, San
Jose, California

San Jose HempCon is one
America’s biggest medical marijuana shows and features a huge number of
exhibits sponsored by medical marijuana dispensaries, caregivers, legal
services, evaluation services, equipment, and accessories. San Jose HempCon
also features live music performances and plenty of food and drink.

* Over 100 collectives

* 200+ cannabis related
exhibitors

* Onsite evaluations (you can
get medical marijuana certification onsite if you qualify).

* State of the art grow
products

* The coolest glass & vapes

* Seminars by leading cannabis
experts

Cost: $30. Tickets are
available for purchase on the day of the show.

Age: The event is 18+

Medical marijuana ID cards or
documentation are not required to enter, except for special prop 215 area of
the exhibition.

Starting from November 2014, surprisingly,
there is a single state of the West Coast, which is still remained unwelcoming
to recreational pot: California. Despite our groundbreaking, 1996 initiative
that made us the first state in the union to legalize medical marijuana, the
Golden State has been slow to join the recreational craze.

But, with voters in Oregon and
Alaska legalizing the use and sale of marijuana — joining Washington and
Colorado in inviting retail spreads of cannabis-infused teas and brownies and
joints — advocates see fresh momentum behind the slow shift in how the public
regards the green stuff and those who enjoy it.

California residents rejected
legalization in 2010, with a 54 percent vote against it, but supporters of
recreational marijuana are growing more confident about reversing that result
in the 2016 election. California, alongside Arizona and Nevada, have
legalization measures in the works for the 2016 election, when the presidential
race is expected to deliver younger voters to the polls who tend to be more supportive
of pot.

Based on the poll DPA,
conducted last February 2014, 58 percent of Californians were supporting
marijuana legalization at the time, and the pro/con ratio is shifting towards
legalization every day.

“The bottom line is that people
are no longer fooled by the anti-marijuana propaganda,” said Chris Lindsey,
legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, which filed paperwork
this fall to raise money for California’s legalization measure. Echoing what
has been seen as a winning talking point for cannabis proponents in recent
years, Lindsey said, “Voters are increasingly savvy to the fact that marijuana
is far less harmful than alcohol and really should be treated that way.”

The electorate has fundamentally
changed to include more Millennials who are tolerant of the drug, alongside
Baby Boomers who grew up with it in the ’60s. Another factor is that more than
20 states as well as the District of Colombia now permit marijuana to be
prescribed for the sick, meaning many communities have grown accustomed to the
drug.

Even without legalization, many
law enforcement agencies have made busting pot users a low priority — as a trip
to most any outdoor concert venue will prove. Critics have long said that most
medical pot users obtain their “medicine” for recreational purposes.

“The sky didn’t fall. Usage
rates and abuse didn’t change. All the doom-and-gloom scenarios that we were
told would happen didn’t come to fruition, and people are seeing that,” Lindsey
said.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris may have won re-election in
the state last month by beating the pro-weed Republican candidate Ron Gold, but
recently she said she has no “moral opposition” to marijuana and is “not
opposed” to legalizing the drug.

In fact, Harris said she thinks the idea of legalizing the drug has a
“certain inevitability” about it. She did not go as far as endorsing legalization,
though, adding that she does have concerns over the law enforcement
implications of legalization.

"I am not opposed to the legalization of marijuana. I'm the top
cop, and so I have to look at it from a law enforcement perspective and a
public safety perspective,” Harris told Buzzfeed News in an interview. “I think
we are fortunate to have Colorado and Washington be in front of us on this and
figuring out the details of what it looks like when it’s legalized.”